


But We Keep Knitting Together (Strangely, Inevitably)

by cold_feets



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Reality, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-19
Updated: 2011-08-19
Packaged: 2017-10-22 19:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cold_feets/pseuds/cold_feets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set late S5 with a decent amount of handwaving. Dean ends up in another universe where Bobby, Sam, and Cas have finally met the monster they can’t stop and things between Dean and Cas turned out differently. But maybe only a little.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But We Keep Knitting Together (Strangely, Inevitably)

**Author's Note:**

> Vashta nerada shamelessly stolen from Doctor Who.

The worst part of the whole thing, really, is how it doesn’t even surprise him anymore. One second he’s doing 85 just outside Hartford, and the next he’s jolting awake on the side of I-80 near Omaha. Dean drops his head against his hands on the steering wheel, curses under his breath, and wonders just how many hours of his life he’s spent trying to figure out if he just woke up _from_ a dream or _in_ one.

He fishes in his pocket for his phone, but he can’t get a damn signal. The radio is crackling out a steady stream of static no matter how he spins the dial, and it could just be that he’s in the middle of nowhere, but instinct tells him that it’s not. The road stretches on behind him for miles, and he can’t see a single car.

Dean drums his fingers against the steering wheel for a moment and squints into the setting sun. He’s a couple hours out of Sioux Falls, ninety minutes if he really pushes. He checks his cell again, eyes the empty road, and heads off.

***

It’s dark by the time he nears Bobby’s, his headlights cutting sharp through the night. At first he doesn’t think much of the odd glow in the distance, but the closer he gets, the more he realizes that it can only be coming from one place. And there’s only about a million reasons why Bobby’s place might have suddenly gone nuclear, the least concerning of which actually involves a nuclear reactor. He guns it the last few miles, hands tight around the wheel, and only relaxes marginally when he pulls up to see the scrap yard isn’t on fire or radioactive or being beamed up into a spaceship.

Instead, there are lights mounted everywhere, pointing in all directions. Giant, industrial things, burning at about 10 bajillion watts by Dean’s estimation, illuminating a wide circle around both the house and the scrap yard.

He parks the Impala, and just sits there, taking it all in, trying to make it make sense before he slips his gun into his belt and gets out of the car.

He only startles a bit when Bobby’s front door opens and an unfamiliar figure steps out onto the porch; the roar of the Impala is pretty unmistakable as it pulls up the drive. Dean heads toward the house, but hesitates on the periphery of the circle of light, some instinct telling him to wait. Could be a trap, could be some kind of ward, or it could just be Bobby’s paranoia cranked to eleven. Either way, he’s not taking any chances.

The approaching figure squints against the light. "Dean?"

It’s Cas.

And it’s strange how Dean knows that the second he hears him because this...person in front of him is nothing like Cas--doesn’t look like Cas, with scars blooming from beneath the collar of a worn t-shirt, up the right side of his neck, across his cheek, down his right arm, his fingers downright skeletal in places, only tight, new skin stretched across the bone. And he certainly doesn’t move like Cas, Dean notes, as the other man takes a couple of shuffling, hesitant steps closer, frowning at Dean.

"What the hell happened to you?" Dean asks, but somehow he _knows_. Something is very wrong here, and he’s known it from the second he woke up on that too quiet highway. This world is off in a way he can’t place, and he hates how that’s getting to be a real fucking familiar feeling.

"Dean?" It’s barely a whisper, rough and weary, drifting across the few feet left between them, and Cas’s fingers twitch at his sides like he wants to reach out and grab him, check that he’s real.

"Hey, yeah, it’s me," he says, taking a step closer. "Listen--"

He’s cut off by the slam of Bobby’s front door and heavy boots on the steps.

"Cas, what the hell are you--"

But Sam stops dead in his tracks when his eyes fall on Dean. Half a breath later, he has his gun drawn, aimed square at Dean's chest. "Cas, step back."

Dean raises his hands in the air on instinct. "Sammy."

"Cas," Sam warns, and Cas finally blinks and takes a few steps back, but never takes his eyes off Dean.

Dean swallows. "Put that away, Sam."

"Shut up. I don't know who or what you are, but right now you should be focusing all your attention on shutting the hell up."

"Look. Hey." Dean reaches behind him, slowly, and notices Sam’s shoulders tense. "I’m just gonna get rid of this, okay?"

He pulls out the gun, removes the clip, and tosses both in Sam’s direction before holding his hands up in front of him again. It’s the only weapon he has, and losing it makes him uneasy, but he’s faced worse with less. "Okay?"

"Sam?" Dean can't see anything beyond the glare of the lights on the front porch, but he can recognize Bobby's voice.

"Bobby, what the hell is all this?"

Sam still has his gun out, and he doesn't look away, doesn't even blink as he tells Bobby, "Take Cas and get him inside where it's safe. I'll deal with this."

 _Where it's safe._ Dean's senses kick into overdrive, that tickling in the back of his mind that things are very wrong here suddenly full blown. He watches as Bobby comes down off the porch and takes Cas by the arm.

"Come on, son," Bobby says, uncharacteristically gentle as Cas's feet stay firmly in place. "It ain't him. You know it ain't."

Cas shuts his eyes and swallows hard, and when Bobby tugs on his arm again, he allows himself to be pulled back into the light.

"Tell me what you are," Sam demands.

"Dammit, Sam, it's me. It's Dean."

Sam shakes his head. "Dean died three months ago. There wasn't enough left of him for you to possess, so you can't be a demon. And no human is stupid enough to be wandering around at night, so I'm gonna ask you one more time: what the hell are you?"

Dean closes his eyes and breathes for a moment, careful not to let his hands drop. He really thought he was done with the universe hopping bullshit after he ganked Zachariah.

"Look, I don't know how I got here. I don't even know where or _when_ here is exactly. All I know is I woke up in my car outside of Omaha when last I knew I was somewhere in Connecticut, so I came here hoping someone would be able to talk a little sense. So far, that ain’t happening."

For a moment, there’s only the electric hum of the lights and the sound of his own heart in his ears.

"He's telling the truth," Cas says finally.

"Are you sure?" Sam asks, and his eyes flick in Cas's direction just for a second. "Are you absolutely positive? This isn't just--"

"He's out of place. I can't explain it." Cas shrugs off Bobby’s hand, takes a few careful steps closer, and for the first time, Dean notices the reason for his odd gait: a slight limp, favoring his left leg. Cas frowns at him, looking him up and down. "He's not your brother, Sam. But he _is_ Dean."

"You're _sure_?" Sam asks again.

Cas nods, and Sam finally lowers the gun. Dean lets out a breath and, his hands fall to his sides.

"Wandering around at night trying to get himself killed? Sounds like something Dean would do," Bobby says.

"Yeah, what’s with the light show, Bobby?" Dean asks. "You trying to get a tan?"

"And a wiseass to boot." Bobby turns to Sam. "Get him checked out and bring him inside."

Sam gives a nod and watches Bobby and Cas disappear back inside before turning back to Dean. "Put your hands behind your head and step into the middle of the light."

"Why?" Dean asks with a glance to the gun still in Sam’s hand.

Sam stops and smirks. "It really is you, isn’t it?"

"Uhh, yes?"

"And you really have no idea what all this is about?" he says, gesturing to the lights with one hand and slipping his gun in his belt with the other..

"You’re holding auditions for Bobby’s new musical?"

Sam lets out a tired laugh. "Put your hands behind your head,” he says again. "We’ll explain inside."

Dean does as he’s told, watching carefully as Sam circles him and looks him up and down.

"What exactly are you looking for?"

"Shadows."

"Shadows?"

"Trust me, you’re lucky to be alive right now. Rule one: don’t go out at night. Don’t go out if it’s even close to being night." He jerks his thumb over his shoulder towards the house. "You’re clean. Come on."

"Shadows?" Dean repeats as he follows Sam inside. Bobby’s house looks the same as it ever did, all dust and books and notes scratched in his indecipherable scrawl, only the place is lit up like a fucking Christmas tree, strings of safety lights dangling from the ceiling, leaving the rooms brighter than he’s ever seen.

Bobby is in his usual spot, feet kicked up on the desk, a glass of whiskey curled in his fingers while Cas rests on the arm of the couch, picking at a hole in his jeans, head bowed, small and foreign with a nearly empty glass in his left hand.

"So what the hell is going on? We’re scared of shadows now?" Dean asks.

Sam drops down onto the couch, the springs creaking beneath his weight. "It’s something big. Bigger than we’ve ever seen."

Dean tries not to laugh. Everything kind of pales in comparison when you’re staring down the barrel of the apocalypse.

"What is it?"

"Vashta nerada."

"What the hell are vashta nerada?" Dean asks as he leans against the door frame.

"'The shadows that melt the flesh,'" Bobby translates. "You know when you feel something run across your arm only there ain’t nothing there? That's them. Not enough to do any damage, but it's them. Damn near invisible sonsabitches. Swarms look like harmless shadows, but you get enough of 'em, they'll eat every speck of flesh off you before you can blink."

Dean finds himself looking at Cas, the scars that mar the right side of his body. Cas sits very still, like he knows Dean is staring, but is trying to pretend otherwise.

"They're everywhere. More concentrated in the cities, but spreading as they run out of a food supply. And we haven't found a way to kill 'em," Sam concludes. "No one has."

"And what about the apocalypse?"

"The apocalypse?" Bobby lets out a hollow laugh. "Son, these things are gonna wipe out every living thing on the planet. Just a matter of time. That ain’t apocalyptic enough for you?"

"No, I mean, what about Lucifer? What about the angels?"

"The angels are all gone," Cas says, looking up at him for the first time since they came inside. "When Lucifer rose, he brought these creatures with him. If the vashta nerada get hold of an angel, they have an endless food supply so long as he keeps fighting and healing his vessel. It’s far too dangerous. They left over a year ago."

"Why the hell did you stick around, then?"

"Why?" Cas squints at him in confusion, and Dean just shrugs. He thinks it’s a fair question. "I stayed behind because..." But them something in Cas’s face shifts, his eyes locked on Dean’s, and Dean eventually has to look away.

"I had my reasons," Cas says finally, which doesn’t actually answer a damn thing.

But Cas downs the rest of his drink in one go, sets the glass on the table, and lets out a long slow breath. "I’ll be upstairs," he says, and he takes a wide berth around Dean as he makes his way to the stairs and disappears.

Dean turns to look back at Sam and Bobby. "What the hell’s with him?"

Bobby draws a weary hand down his face. "He stayed for you, dumbass."

"Why?"

"Because for some unfathomable reason, he loved you."

Dean clears his throat. "Say again?"

Bobby and Sam exchange a look. "He loved you," Bobby repeats. "He wasn’t about to leave you behind."

"You _are_ joking, right?" Dean asks, gaze flicking between the two of them. "Me and Cas? That’s--"

"The way it is around here," Bobby says, standing up and leaning across the desk. "So maybe you should keep your trap shut before you give one of us a reason to pop you in it."

Dean holds his hands up in surrender and very pointedly doesn’t say anything. Bobby deflates a bit, placated for the moment and tosses back the last of his drink.

"Keep an eye on him," he tells Sam without even shifting his gaze from Dean. "I’m gonna go make sure Cas is all right."

Bobby retreats upstairs, feet heavy on each step, and Dean watches him go. "He’s got a real soft spot for Cas, huh?"

Sam shrugs one shoulder. "Cas has been through a lot. He doesn’t really have anyone else except us."

"What happened to him?" he asks, sitting on the arm of the couch. "The...uh--" He gestures to the side of his face.

For a second, Sam hesitates, rubbing the back of his neck. He swallows and when he speaks his voice is raw and rough. "They got you. You and Cas. You went on a supply run, got a flat, and couldn't get back before nightfall. A swarm found you, but at night there's no way of knowing until it's too late. Cas poured everything he had into keeping you alive, but it wasn't... It happens so fast, Dean. You can't understand until you see it. He had to let you go." Sam is quiet for a long moment, lost in memory. He clears his throat and goes on. "He couldn't piece himself back together after. Or maybe he just didn't want to. I don't even know how he got out of there in the first place."

Dean's head is filled with the rough pink skin of Cas's scars, the deep, jagged cut of them down his side. _Eaten alive._ He knows there are probably worse ways to go, but right now he can't think of any.

"He's lucky it happened when it did, in a way. If it happened tomorrow, I don't think he'd be able to fight it. Once the vashta nerada showed up, the other angels disappeared. But he stuck around and--"

"His mojo faded," Dean says, remembering the Castiel he met in 2014.

"Yeah." Sam frowns. "How’d you know?"

"This ain’t exactly my first ride on the universe merry-go-round." Dean explains. "And me and Cas? We were..." He gestures helplessly, and Sam snorts a quiet laugh.

"Together, yeah. For a few years. I take it you and your Cas are--"

"Not," he says. "Definitely not."

"Huh." Sam frowns at him for a moment. "Weird."

"What?"

"Just hard to imagine you and Cas not being...you and Cas," Sam says with a shrug.

"I think it just might be a bit weirder to be in my shoes right now. Trust me." Dean pulls out one of the chairs and sinks down, rubbing his face wearily. He’d seen Cas neck high in women and pills, depressed and defeated by his humanity. Somehow this didn’t seem quite as impossible in some bizarre way. "How's he dealing?"

"He misses you," Sam says. "We all do."

Dean nods and swallows. "And you’re just here, riding it out to the end?"

Sam looks down at the desk, his thumbnail picking at hardened wax leftover from some ritual of Bobby’s. "There isn’t anything else to do. Believe me, we tried. We tried everything. They can’t be stopped."

"Not even the angels?"

He shakes his head. "The angels don’t care. This thing wipes out humanity, and the board is cleared for their showdown with Lucifer."

"Well," Dean says. "Glad the angels are still dicks. Is there anything _good_ about this place?"

Sam smirks down at the table. "Not lately, no."

"Wow. Sorry."

"Yeah. Well." Sam drags a hand through his hair, and Dean sees just how bone-weary he is, pale skin and dark circles under his eyes. There’s barely any fight left in him, and there’s nothing Dean can do about it.

"So what can we do about getting me back where I belong?"

Sam shrugs. "How did you get here in the first place?"

"No clue. One minute I’m there, then I’m here."

"Well," Sam says, "the only thing we know with that kind of power is an angel. And like we said, the angels are gone."

"What about Cas?"

"You said it yourself. He’s powerless."

"He’s got nothing? Not even a little juice?"

Sam rubs his jaw and leans back in his chair. "Look, man, you’d have to ask him. But it’s been a year. The last time I saw him with any kind of power was three months ago when he managed to stitch himself back together, and you can see how that turned out."

"Right." Dean gets to his feet and starts pacing, trying to think where they could possibly find information on traveling to an alternate dimension when they didn’t even know it was possible until the angels showed up. He drags a hand down his face, catching on the two days’ growth of beard on his chin, and lets out a frustrated sigh.

"Hey, Dean," Sam says, getting to his feet and placing himself it Dean’s path, forcing Dean to still. "Look, it’s been a long day, and kind of a weird night. Why don’t we get some rest, and we’ll see what we can figure out in the morning."

"Yeah, sure," Dean says.

"You’re all right down here?" Sam adds, jerking his head towards the couch.

Dean waves him off with a nod, though he’s pretty sure he’s too wound up to sleep. It won’t be the first time he’s stayed up through the night poring through Bobby’s books trying to find a way to save his own ass. Sam hesitates for a moment in the door way and turns back to him.

"It’s, uh..." He swallows. "It’s really good to see you again, Dean. I mean..." He trails off and shrugs because the whole situation is just too weird for either of them to put into words.

But Dean remembers everything that Sam went through the last time he died. And maybe this Sam’s path is different, and maybe Ruby never happened this time around, but they’ve lost each other too many times for Dean to feel anything but sympathy for this Sam and the way he’s blinking too fast.

Dean crosses the room and pulls Sam into a tight hug, feeling a breath shudder out of him as he lifts his arms around Dean.

"It’s good to see you, too, Sammy," Dean tells him. He saw his Sam twelve hours ago, but that’s not important right now. "Get some sleep. I’ll be all right."

"Good. Oh, and the lights stay on at night," he says, pointing to the string of safety lights.

"How the hell do you sleep?"

"Trust me," Sam says. "You don’t want to sleep without them."

Sam disappears upstairs while Dean turns to Bobby’s bookshelves and starts researching. He really hopes this Bobby has _The Idiot’s Guide to Angel Time Travel_. He settles down at the desk with a stack of dusty books and gets to work.

He’s been at it for about 45 minutes with no joy when he hears footsteps on the stairs, and Cas appears in bare feet and an old t-shirt that Dean recognizes as his own. Or Dean’s. Or whatever.

Cas barely even glances at him as he crosses the room, heading for the kitchen, but Dean’s eyes follow his every move, struggling to reconcile what he sees with the Cas he knows. Dean gets up from behind Bobby’s desk without realizing it and leans in the doorway, watching Cas fill a glass beneath the faucet.

"You’re staring," Cas says without looking up at him, and Dean quickly looks away only to find his gaze wandering back in Cas’s direction a few seconds later. Cas downs the entire glass in one go, throat working quickly, shoulders hunched high.

"I just...I’ve barely even seen you bleed for more than a few seconds. This is kinda hard to wrap my head around."

Cas nods down at the sink. "Yeah, well, things are different here. You’re not the only one who has to adjust."

"Right. I know this can’t be easy for you. Any of you." Dean takes a few steps into the kitchen. "I’m sorry. You know, about what happened."

Apologizing for his own death isn’t the strangest thing that’s ever happened to him. It’s not even the strangest thing that’s happened to him this week, but it still makes him feel awkward and helpless. All the apologies in the world don’t bring people back from the dead. He’s tried.

"Thank you," Cas whispers.

Dean can see Cas watching him out of the corner of his eye and says, "Can I see?" before he really thinks about it. Cas looks up finally and blinks at him, surprise plain on his face, and Dean knows he’s crossed a line. The apology is already on his lips, but before he can get it out, Cas takes a deep breath and grasps the hem of his t-shirt, pulling it over his head, exposing the rips through his flesh.

All of the air rushes out of Dean's lungs. "Jesus," he croaks.

Cas can't meet his eye.

It's not just a simple scar; there are _gouges_. Whole areas where the skin and muscle are just gone, concave dips on his shoulder, his hip, the new skin ragged and shiny and pink like a burn scar, disappearing below the waist of his pants, which explains the limp. Anyone else, Dean thinks, and they wouldn’t be alive, not like this. But Cas was never just anyone.

Dean's seen Castiel come back from worse, but somehow this hits him hardest, the marks so _human_ , a reminder that no matter how much he likes to think of Cas as unstoppable, there are things out there that even he can't fight.

"I'm so sorry, Cas," Dean breathes.

Cas shrugs one shoulder, twisting his shirt in his hands.

"Does it hurt?"

"It aches sometimes. I have trouble with my hand." He flexes the stiff, mangled fingers of his right hand, demonstrating the odd bend of his wrist, the way he can't uncurl the last two fingers. "But I manage."

"I’m sorry," he says again. He doesn’t know what else to say.

Cas shrugs again and pulls his shirt back over his head. "It wasn’t your fault," he says, pushing his hand through his hair.

"Still. There’s nothing you can do?"

"I did all I could do."

Dean nods and leans back against the kitchen counter. "Sorry. I wasn’t trying to pry."

Cas turns and fills his glass again, swallowing it down quickly. When he’s done, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, sighs, and blinks down at his scarred palm. "The real bitch of it is this is my jerking off hand."

Dean stares for a second, the statement so unexpected in every way, and then he barks out a sharp laugh that quickly dissolves into side-aching hysterics. When he finally manages to catch his breath and wipe the tears from his eyes, he sees Cas watching him with a grin and a soft chuckle. Everything about the moment seems so wrong to Dean, and at the same time it seems utterly comfortable. He smiles back at Cas, and for a fleeting second, some part of him screams that this is familiar, that this is right, that he belongs here.

"Well, the great thing about humans is that we adapt," Dean offers.

"That we do."

Dean clears his throat and crosses his arms against his chest. "Guess that means you getting me home is out of the question then, huh?"

Cas chews on his bottom lip for a second. "I don't know," he says.

"Cas--"

"I haven’t tried something like that for a very long time. I don’t know if I have the strength anymore." Cas turns and heads for the front room, and Dean follows him.

"Look, you’re kind of my only hope here, man," Dean says, trying not to think too far ahead, trying not to think of spending the rest of his life here, and just how short the rest of that life might be. The world is ending, slowly but surely. He’s never been one to bail on a sinking ship, but he can’t stay. "You’ve gotta at least be able to try."

"Something could go wrong. You could end up stuck between universes, and no one could do anything about it. You'd be lost." He shakes his head and turns to face Dean. "Attempting something like this is dangerous enough at full power. Like this?" He gestures to himself and shrugs. "The risk would be immense."

"Are you completely drained?"

"I may as well be."

"Yeah, but _are_ you?"

"Not completely," Cas admits after a moment.

"Then you have to try. Please."

Cas frowns and looks away. "Dean."

" _Please._ I’m actually begging you here, man. If there’s the smallest chance this could work, you have to try. If it goes wrong, then I’ll deal with it. But, Cas, come on. I don’t belong here."

Cas rubs his face with his hands, that same tired gesture of Sam’s, and he wonders which of them picked it up from the other. Three months they’ve been here like this with no one to lean on but each other, and who knows what it was like before that. But Cas is so clearly a part of this, a part of this _family_ , sleeping in Bobby’s spare room, wearing Dean’s old shirt, and doing things that remind him of Sam.

Cas drops his hands heavily to his sides. "I'll need to find where you belong."

Dean lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Then he nods, sits down on the arm of the couch, and rubs his palms against his jeans. "Okay, how do we do that?"

For a second, Cas hesitates. "You won’t like it.”

"If it gets me home--"

"I'll need to look into your mind. Your memories."

Dean’s eager smile falters. "Um, I don't know if--"

Cas sits down next to him and tries to catch his eye when he looks away. "I know that bothers you. But it's the only way. I can't send you home if I don't know where home is. Your memories and experiences create something like a...a celestial map of your world. They're the only guide we have."

"A celestial map? They're just memories."

"Only to someone who doesn't know how to read them."

"But you do."

"Of course," Cas says, looking mildly offended that Dean could even think otherwise. "Reading them is easy enough. It's accessing them that might prove difficult."

"You're not exactly filling me with a lot of confidence here, Cas."

"Dean, I'm not the creature I once was." Dean notes how Cas’s voice gets a little higher in his frustration, and it proves Cas’s point possibly even more than his words. "Things like this don't come as easily as they might have before. But I can do this. You just have to trust me."

And it shocks Dean that he _does_ trust this Cas, possibly even more than he trusts his own. This Cas has long been free of Heaven's agenda. He's one of them in a way that his Cas won't let himself become. This Cas is hovering on the edge of humanity, broken and fated with the apocalypse on his doorstep, and he doesn't seem to find it a punishment.

Dean takes a deep breath, scuffs a hand through his hair, and shrugs. "Okay, so how's this work? Is it like a vulcan mindmeld thing?"

"Similar," Cas says with a nod as he pushes himself to his feet.

Dean huffs out a laugh. "You know, that's the first time you've ever understood me when I've said something like that." But then he considers for a second. "Wait. So you finally sat your angelbutt down to watch television, and out of all the possibilities, you chose to watch Star Trek?"

"Yes. I'm sorry it doesn't live up to your high intellectual standards of television cultivated from years of watching Dr. Sexy."

Dean narrows his eyes at him. "Touché."

Cas smiles, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and there's a bit of laughter in his voice when he asks, "Ready?"

Dean nods, and Cas raises his hands on either side of his head, but Dean grabs his wrist, just before he makes contact. "Don't tell anyone," he says, "about what you see."

Cas's smile fades. "It's the end of the world, Dean. There's no one left to tell."

"I know, but just promise me, all right?"

"I promise."

Dean lets out a low breath and releases his grip on Cas's arm. "Thank you."

"Breathe and relax," Cas tells him as his fingertips land gently against his temples. Cas's eyes drift shut as he speaks. "Try not to think of anything in particular. Let me find my own way."

Dean nods, and Cas presses his palms flat against the sides of his face as best he can, stilling him.

"And don't move."

"Sorry."

"And stop staring at me."

Dean bites back a grin as he shuts his eyes.

Almost instantly, he feels a pressure--a presence--in his skull, and he pushes back against it on instinct, his body tensing.

"That's me. Don't fight it."

Dean exhales slowly and tries to relax. It isn’t easy, particularly not when memories start filling his head: his mother setting a bowl of cereal in front of him, the first time he tried to perform an exorcism on his own and nearly got himself killed, Tricia Berman soft and grinning beneath him when he was seventeen. It’s like Cas is flipping through the book of his life, stopping at pages at random before moving on. It’s so much, so fast. Sam dying in his arms. Washing the windshield of the Impala last Tuesday. His father teaching him to shoot. Sam falling asleep on the couch watching cartoons in some nameless motel room, while they waited for Dad to get back. Bobby teaching him to play poker when he was nine.

"Cas--"

But Cas only grips his skull tighter in response, can probably feel Dean’s urge to pull away.

Showing Sam how to tie his shoes. The first soul he sliced into in Hell. The sick taste of sulfur on his tongue after he traded his life for Sam’s. The blurred month he spent drinking after Sammy left for Stanford. Cas beating him half to death in a back alley. His mother’s fingers in his hair as she hummed softly waiting for him to fall asleep. Waking up in his own grave, the dark and the dirt and--

It's too much. He reaches up to push Cas away, but then the memories start to fade, the book closes, and Cas's presence in his mind recedes. His heart is pounding loudly in his chest, and when he opens his eyes, he sees his fingers twisted in Cas's shirt.

"Take a deep breath," Cas murmurs, pushing Dean's hair back, his other palm still warm against Dean's cheek.

Dean’s forehead drops against Cas’s stomach, and he holds on and breathes, barely daring to blink for fear that he end up back in the swirl of things he’d rather forget.

Cas rubs his hand between Dean’s shoulderblades and doesn’t talk, just waits it out with him until Dean feels his fingers unclench and his muscles start to relax. He gets to his feet, a little unsteady, and pushes past Cas, needing the space.

"You get what you need?" he asks, voice rough.

"Yes. Are you all right?"

"Fine. I’m fine. Just need a minute."

Cas nods. "Of course."

Dean sits in the far corner of the couch and breathes, head in his hands. A moment later, he feels the cushions sink beside him. "That wasn’t even thirty seconds, Cas."

"Can I ask you a question? Or...possibly several?"

"I don't know if that's such a good idea right now."

"When you were in Hell--"

The back of Dean’s neck prickles with sweat. "Cas, don't."

"--who pulled you out? I saw--"

_Dean slamming a knife into Castiel’s chest. Dean twisted and wailing in hell. The hellhounds. A jagged blade in his hand as he slices and carves, unable to even beg forgiveness because he doesn’t deserve it._

It isn’t the question Dean expects, not after all that Cas just saw. He lifts his head and takes in Cas’s unmasked confusion.

"You did," Dean explains. "You know that."

Cas frowns. "No, Uriel did."

Dean shakes his head. "Not where I’m from. I’ve got the mark to prove it."

"Mark?"

He hesitates for a second. It’s not something he shares with people. Hell, he and his Cas have never even talked about it. It’s just something that they both know about and both pretend isn’t there, a strangely intimate manifestation of this weird connection between them.

But now this Cas is looking at him, bewildered and a little shocked that such a thing was even possible, and Dean sighs. "Well, I guess you showed me yours," he says, shrugging out of his button down and pulling up the sleeve of his t-shirt to reveal the handprint.

"I did that?" Cas asks, gaping.

"Probably still be down there if it weren’t for you."

Cas lifts his hand--his right--and holds it over the mark; once upon a time, it might have been a perfect fit, but not anymore. He can’t even unfurl his fingers enough to lay his palm flat.

"You saved my life," Dean tells him. "More times than I can count."

"It’s a life worth saving," Cas says, still looking at the mark beneath his palm. "But I wasn’t strong enough. I’ve never been strong enough," he adds softly.

"Cas..."

"I couldn’t save him," he admits. "I tried. I held on, and I tried, but they were so fast, and I couldn’t heal him fast enough. They just devoured him over and over again and...I couldn’t let him go. They wouldn’t stop, but I couldn’t let him go." The words tumble out in a rush, a confession pent up for too long. He stops and swallows, sucking in a gulp of air, and Dean watches, helpless. "It wasn’t quick for him, not like all the others."

Cas’s eyes lose their focus, and he pulls away, getting to his feet. He snatches one of the empty glasses off the desk and sloshes the last of the bottle into it, quickly tossing it back.

"I’m sorry," Dean says. "I didn’t know."

"No one did," Cas tells his empty glass, his voice rough. "I couldn't tell them. They didn't need to know. To think of him in pain like that."

Dean swallows and tries not to think too hard about being eaten alive a dozen times, and Cas holding on, knowing that he can’t save him. Instead, he shakes it off, pulls his shirt back on, and offers the only comfort he can think of. "Does your Bobby still hide a bottle of Blue Label behind the Latin dictionary on the third shelf?"

He can see Cas watching him curiously out of the corner of his eye as he tugs a few books off the shelf and finds a nearly full bottle of Johnnie Walker behind them. "You can always count on Bobby Singer, I guess," he says with a chuckle, brushing away the thin layer of dust from the label.

He picks up the other abandoned glass from the desk and pours himself a drink before crossing to Cas and filling his glass. Cas doesn’t look at him, but he drinks it down.

"I’m sorry," Dean says again. "Really. I--"

"Stop," Cas says, shaking his head. "I don’t..." He takes a deep breath. "Tell me about your Castiel."

"What do you want to know?" he asks, leaning back against Bobby’s desk.

"Do you think he’s in love with you?"

Dean coughs as his drink goes down the wrong way, and Cas cracks a shaky smile.

"I was," Cas explains, settling beside Dean. "Almost from the start. It just took me a while to figure it out."

"We’re not--" Dean shakes his head, still coughing.

"We weren’t either. And then..." Cas shrugs. "And then, we were."

"It’s really not like that," Dean says once he finally catches his breath. "Cas doesn’t even... I mean, he doesn’t _understand_ \--"

"I bet he understands more than you think."

He thinks of Cas slamming him against a brick wall and explaining how everything he’d done, everything he’d given up had been for Dean. Their ill-fated trip to the brothel, how Cas sat terrified, unable to even speak. He remembers Cas in 2014, ready to die by his side, ready to walk straight into what he knew was a trap because it meant helping Dean.

And okay, Cas stares a bit sometimes, and he still hasn’t mastered the whole personal space issue, but that’s just a freaky angel thing.

"Where I'm from, me and you...well, we're different," Dean explains. "I don't know how different exactly, or how we got to be that way, but I have to think that some part of us is still the same. I mean, you drive me crazy, and I know I drive you crazy, but that's just how it is, you know? And I'd rather have you around driving me crazy than not at all. So some part of what you and him had makes sense, I guess, in some fucked up, headtrippy way."

Cas is watching him with that small, close-lipped smile of his. The sight is so fucking familiar that he loses his train of thought for a moment.

"So, um. All I'm trying to say is I think he probably loved you very much. And if he was anything at all like me, he probably didn't tell you nearly enough."

He’s pretty sure that isn’t what he meant to say, but it’s still probably true.

Cas looks away, blinking quickly. "We were never much for talking," he adds with a small laugh. "Better at doing."

And, well, that sounds about right. Weird, but right.

"Was he good to you?"

"It was never easy," Cas says with a small shrug. "A hunter’s life never is, you know that. But we made it work. We were happy."

"Happy. Really."

It stings more than he expects it to. Somewhere there was this Dean that managed to be the person he never quite was able to be, someone who found the balance between the job and the people he cared about. Even if it didn’t last for long.

The corner of Cas's mouth curls up just a bit. "Do all versions of you treat happiness like an impossibility? He took some convincing as well."

"Doesn’t surprise me."

And Cas’s smile fades to something sad and worn. "I wish it did."

Dean pushes to his feet and crosses over to the bookshelves, idly scanning the titles. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Cas watching him with that same steady, unsettling gaze he’s grown used to over the past couple years. It used to make the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He wonders what it means that it doesn’t even faze him anymore.

"He just doesn’t stop, you know?" he tells the bookcase because it’s easier that way. "He rebelled. He’s _died_ before, and sure, God or whoever brought him back, but... he just throws himself in front of every oncoming bus just to keep me and Sammy safe."

"You’re important."

Dean scoffs. "Sure. The Righteous Man."

"No, you’re important _to him_. An angel does not make the decision to rebel lightly, not after Lucifer."

The urge to argue rises in him quickly; Cas rebelled so they could _stop_ Lucifer, not because of Dean. But when he turns with the words already halfway to his lips, Cas is still watching him, exhausted and diminished, and all the fight drains out of him.

"It’s late," Cas says.

"Yeah."

Cas pushes unsteadily to his feet, and Dean catches his elbow.

"You okay?"

"Just the whiskey. I’m fine."

"Not used to you being such a lightweight," Dean says.

He’s still holding onto Cas’s elbow, and Cas is close, too close, close enough to feel the heat of him. And Dean almost wants to lean in, here in this place where it doesn’t matter, where there’s zero risk, just to _see_ , but then Cas is wrapping his fingers around Dean’s, pulling his hand away.

"Goodnight, Dean," he says, giving his fingers a gentle squeeze before releasing them. He turns and heads toward the stairs.

"Yeah. Night," Dean calls after him.

A moment later the house is silent save for the hum of the lights, and Dean drops heavily onto the couch, a shaking breath rushing from his lungs.

***

Dean wakes to hushed voices and sunlight pouring through the windows. He stretches and makes his way through the kitchen to find Sam and Cas sitting on the porch steps and Bobby leaning back against the railing, all three of them with mugs of coffee in their hands.

"This really is bizarro world," Dean says, shaking his head.

"D’you manage to get some sleep?" Bobby asks. "Heard you two up half the night gossiping like a couple of teenage girls at a sleepover," he adds with a glance over at Cas.

Cas smiles down into his coffee mug at the gentle ribbing.

"Just...catching up," Dean says with a shrug.

"And drinking all my liquor," Bobby adds, narrowing his eyes.

Dean offers him an apologetic grin.

"We should do this now," Cas says. "The longer we wait, the more difficult it becomes."

"You should have done it last night, then," Bobby says.

"If you hid your whiskey better, I might have."

Bobby huffs out a laugh and offers Cas a hand, helping him to his feet. Cas turns to him and raises his eyebrows at Dean. "Okay?"

Some small part of Dean isn’t quite ready. Some small part of him thinks of morning coffee and the three of them soaking in the sunlight while they still can and doesn’t want to leave.

They’re exhausted, but they’re not _worried_. And Dean gets it. He really does. He spent a year counting down the days until his last, and he knows that sometimes hope is the only thing that keeps you waking up in the morning. But some times, it will drain you, and you just have to let it go so you can get on with what little of your life you have left. There are some monsters out there you just can’t stop, no matter how hard you fight. There’s peace in hopelessness, and Bobby, Sam, and Cas have found it. They’ll live out whatever days they still have together, in the only place any of them could ever call home.

And Dean gets it. He’s just so tired of fighting.

But somewhere the Bobby and Sam and Cas he knows are out there, just as tired as he is, and still searching, still hoping, and he can’t abandon them.

"Right," Dean says. "Ready when you are."

They follow Cas down the stairs, out into the yard.

"You’re sure you can do this?" Dean asks.

"Dean, I told you--"

"Lie to me."

But Cas just presses his lips together in a tight line and shakes his head.

"You could stay," Bobby offers with a shrug. "I know it ain’t ideal, but it’s gotta be better than getting lost who knows where."

"Bobby, I..."

Bobby understands his silence for what it is and offers his hand. "It was just a suggestion, son."

"Thanks, Bobby," he says, and as he takes his hand and pulls him into a hug, he has to remind himself that back home, Bobby is fine, in no more danger than he ever is, and always no more than a rough two days of driving away. This Bobby clears his throat and doesn’t say anything as he pulls away and shoves his hands in his pockets, but Dean can see him holding back tears.

Sam is already thumbing at his eyes when Dean turns to him.

"I was gonna tell you to be careful, but I’m pretty sure you won’t," Sam says with a strained laugh.

Dean grins and squeezes Sam back tight when Sam hugs him.

Then he turns to Cas who looked shattered when Dean first showed up in Bobby’s yard, and now somehow looks ten times worse.

"I'm not him, Cas," Dean says softly. He hopes Cas will understand it's an apology.

Cas draws in a shaky breath, and his fingers twitch by his sides. He nods.

"Thank you for what you did for him. For trying. I think he understood. I do," he adds with a shrug. Maybe that Dean was different, but with the way Cas is looking at him, searching his face for something, Dean thinks maybe he wasn't. Not that much, at least. "You did the right thing, in the end."

Cas reaches out with one hand and it hovers over Dean's chest for a moment. Dean watches him as he hesitates, this broken shadow of the Cas he knows, and nods. Cas presses his good hand against Dean's chest, shuts his eyes, and breathes, Dean's heart thumping beneath his palm. His face twists after a moment, his eyes pinching tight, and Dean pulls him in, wraps his arms tight around Cas's shaking shoulders. He feels Cas turn his face into his neck, breathing deep, losing himself in some fading memory of this other Dean who maybe held him just like this sometimes, whose skin maybe smelled the same. And Dean lets him, gives him this one thing, this small comfort, and he doesn't let go until Cas pulls back and quickly wipes his arm across his eyes, drawing in a steadying breath.

"I have to go," Dean says. "I don't belong here."

Cas shakes his head in agreement: no, none of them belong here.

"Hey. Maybe there’s some version of us somewhere that are together and happy and okay. You know? No apocalypse, no vashta nerada, just...okay. Maybe we raise sheep or something," he adds with a shrug.

Cas chuckles quietly. "I like sheep."

And Dean? He fucking hates sheep, but right now it sounds like a pretty okay life.

"You take care of yourself," Dean tells him.

"You, too," Cas says, still smiling. "Ready?"

Dean nods and steels himself for the usual jolt that comes with traveling Angel Airways. Cas places his palm against Dean’s forehead and shuts his eyes, concentrating. For a long moment, nothing happens, and some small voice inside Dean is screaming to call it off: it’s too dangerous for both of them, Cas isn’t strong enough, it’s not worth the risk. But just as he opens his mouth to protest, it’s suddenly night again, his hands closed around the wheel of the Impala, the pavement humming beneath the tires, and miles of highway stretched out before him.


End file.
